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‘Push! Don’t push. Pant!’ Her head was spinning and the room was swirling. The floor stared down at the ceiling.

Samuel heard the commotion

‘My baby! My baby! The aching voice cried out.

He rushed up the stairs like a frightened animal smelling death.

‘Valarie, Valarie.’ His echoing voice kicked at his chest. It was seconds but it felt like eternity before he reached his wife. Cold sweat covered her body as she curled tighter than a fist on the floor in a corner. He wondered if she was dying as the dread took hold of him and he crawled on his hands and knees and took her in his arms. He felt her warm breath. Sign of life! His heart thanked God. He sat cradling her as only the beat of his heart spoke.

Fear filled the corners of his eyes.

Night passed. Valarie’s sounds had long lost their voice. Her vacant eyes stared beyond vision as both their bodies merged into a mass of broken pieces. Samuel took Valarie to her bed.

Samuel had been very disturbed by what had taken placed. He could not reconcile her being adamant about not wanting a child and her groans which grieved for a child. His soul was unsettled and troubled. He was confused and lost. A few days had passed and Valarie was still in bed. It left Samuel feeling aghast.

He needed to resolve the confusion and so he approached her tentatively. But as he got closer he looked at the limp lifeless body in the bed. He held her, but while she so often recoiled from his touch, she now allowed it.

She did not have the strength to push him away, even if she wanted to. He could see that her mind was absent from the room. He wanted to be there for her and for her to be there. He wanted to feel what she was feeling. But in the meantime he would settle with what he had. He s...

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...ds of the baby crowded his thoughts. The sucking of the baby’s hunger caught his attention, activating his mind. He drove around for a little, while the anxiety poured out of his forehead. Eventually he stopped and parked up outside a shop. He paused as his body slumped over the steering wheel. Samuel found the courage as his heavy steps and pounding heart got closer to the shop door. The sound of opening the door amplified as he pushed his shaking body against it. With shaking hands he grabbed at the essential baby items. He fumbled at the counter as the money fell from his hands.

The casher asked him if he was okay. He nodded, not able to speak, as his shaking hands exchange the money for the baby’s milk, nappies and clothes.

Samuel walked swiftly out of the shop and drove away wiping the sweat from his brow. When he arrived home he hastily walked into the house.